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Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Turning Lemons to Lemonade on the Columbia River Gorge

Hello Everyone! Welcome to the Homemaking Party!

When I was in the 7th grade, I won a button at the school carnival that read, "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade." I took it home to my mom to have her explain to me the meaning---basically, when you're faced with hard times, you have two choices: negativity or positivity.

Our family has had to choose to make a lot of lemonade the past couple weeks! To make a long story palatable, our van is toast. Toasty toast. We lost the engine last week and the van is too old to make the repair costs worth doing. So...the kids and I were stranded in Oregon unsure how to get home at the end of the month---for about 24 hours. Then the body of Christ began stepping in and we are well on our way to being able to afford a trip home on time. Yay!

Anyway, this is just the kind of stuff that used to get me down. However, God has faithfully provided for our needs so many times that I didn't even worry this time! I knew it would work out---and it will!

So, on the day I had to go sign off the title to the guy from the scrap yard, I decided to take my oldest son Michael along and make it a happy day. First we stopped for ice cream---yum! Then we took the old highway along the Columbia River Gorge and found several spots with Oregon Trail ruts.

When we got to the town of Arlington, we stopped at the little park in town and I showed Michael my childhood swimming hole! I hadn't been there in at least 30 years!

Every day we encounter things that can bring us down. Some are simple like an impatient person in the checkout line---some are really big like being stranded 1,800 miles from home with nine children. If we choose to make lemonade out of those sour experiences, we might discover fun things like bits of history, a great swimming hole, or ice cream!

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